Tuesday, 8 January 2013

Non-professional diagnoses

I was interested to see yesterday a couple of people making diagnoses of mental disorders without even meeting the person upon whom they were passing judgement. This is not uncommon in some home educating circles. On Cheryl Moy’s blog, at which we looked yesterday, somebody left a comment about the psychologist whom her son saw. She said;

This guy sounds like he is on the autistic spectrum in a big way.

There is something stupendously offensive about this sort of casual use of ‘autistic’ being used just to indicate a person who seems to lack empathy! And of course on here, somebody commented, calling me;

a man who displays such obvious traits of serious personality disorder

Now of course when adults engage in name calling of this sort, it is a bit of harmless fun, although some people will obviously be offended at the idea of using ‘autistic’ as a catch-all phrase for people they don’t like the sound of, as we saw done on Cheryl’s blog yesterday. Doing it to children can be a little more serious.

I think that most of us have come across home educating parents who say that their children are on the spectrum or dyslectic, despite never having been properly diagnosed. It is pretty common and I am not of course the only one to remark upon it. What motive could any parent have for doing this?

Nobody likes to think that they have a stupid, lazy or unpopular child. Of course we all like to kid ourselves that our children are talented, well liked and creative. As long as they are at home with us, we can continue to believe this; it is when they go off to school that we find that others do not share our own unrealistic views of our children! It can be something of a shock to find that your gifted child is falling behind in reading or has no friends. Is it because your parenting skills were defective? Is the kid idle; is that why he is not achieving academically? Why has he no friends? Perhaps he is surly or spiteful and that is why nobody wants to play with him…

There is a far better explanation than this; one which lets us off the hook entirely! My kid has no friends because he has Asperger’s. Or he is struggling with reading because he is dyslectic. This sort of thing removes at a stroke the possibility that your parenting was at fault or that you have a slow witted or unpleasant child.

Middle class children of course tend to be informally diagnosed in this way more than working class kids, simply because their parents are more prone to anxiety and guilt. They are also more likely to be familiar with disorders like ASD and so are able to tailor the symptoms to fit their children. This is a fascinating topic and one of which I have had a good deal of experience from the quarter century that I was working in East London with children with special educational needs. I wonder if anybody has any particularly interesting examples of this syndrome which they would like to share?

18 comments:

I'm not surprised that you have no responses here. Probably, people are simply staggered at the level of hypocrisy displayed in this post, after the nature of your own posts here in the last few days.

'I was interested to see yesterday a couple of people making diagnoses of mental disorders without even meeting the person upon whom they were passing judgement. This is not uncommon in some home educating circles.'

No, indeed not. That is precisely what you have been attemptingg to do, yourself.

'These are curious points and if we can find the source of the anger and malice which some of these people regularly display, then it might give us a little insight into why some other people feel uneasy about the situation of children trapped in the homes of such parents'

You then go on to tag your posts with the words 'autism' 'bi-polar disorder' 'mental illness' etc as some sort of clumsy way of hinting at what you mean.

If I hadn't been reading here from the very start, I would not have believed you had the nerve to write this post.

''I was interested to see yesterday a couple of people making diagnoses of mental disorders without even meeting the person upon whom they were passing judgement. This is not uncommon in some home educating circles.'

No, indeed not. That is precisely what you have been attemptingg to do, yourself.'

Nothing of the sort. I have referred to the disorders which other people have claimed themselves to have or told others that their children have. I make no comment upon the validity of their diagnoses, but if a woamn tells me that she suffers from a neurological disorder that doctors cannot identify, I see no reason why I should not mention it. Since this sort of thing was all done publicly, for others to see, there is evidently no secret about it.

'You then go on to tag your posts with the words 'autism' 'bi-polar disorder' 'mental illness' etc as some sort of clumsy way of hinting at what you mean.'

There is no hinting in the case, clumsy or otherwise! People have said publicly that they are on the autistic spectrum, have a mental illness, are biploar and so on. I have no idea whether they are right about this, but am prepared to take their word for it.

This is quite different from what I have written about in the above post. You must surely recognise the difference between an individual saying, "I am on the spectrum." and somebody else saying of somebody whom the dislike, " This guy sounds like he is on the autistic spectrum in a big way."?

'You must surely recognise the difference between an individual saying, "I am on the spectrum." and somebody else saying of somebody whom the dislike, " This guy sounds like he is on the autistic spectrum in a big way."?'

Claiming someone must be on the spectrum, because they were rude and insensitive, to a mother whose child is on the spectrum was just about the rudest and most insensitive thing the commenter on that blog could have done. Pretty stupid.

As stupid as trying to imply that most regular public online commenters on HE have mental illnesses.

"This is quite different from what I have written about in the above post. You must surely recognise the difference between an individual saying, "I am on the spectrum." and somebody else saying of somebody whom the dislike, " This guy sounds like he is on the autistic spectrum in a big way."?"

So you have never explicitly suggested a diagnosis of Folies a Deux in home educating families in the past and hinted at it again over the last few days?

Let's just hope for your family's sake that your daughter never develops the same condition as your wife. This condition is often seen in mother-daughter combinations. But if it ever happens, I'm sure they will love to hear that it's all in their minds and the mother is to blame for the illness in the child.

I have reported, without comment in the last few days on the number of well known home educating parents who have or say they have, some sort of malfunctioning of their brains. This has all been declared publicly by the people themselves. In some cases it may well be Folie a Deux; these cases though are likely to be a minority. Again, it could be that Munchausen's is involved in others, but this too is likely to be rare. Most probably, most of those about whom I wrote do genuinely have the disorders which they claim for themselves and their children. That is to say that my contention, that many of the better known home educators and former home educators in this country have mental illnesses, learning difficulties and so on is true.

'if we can find the source of the anger and malice which some of these people regularly display, then it might give us a little insight into why some other people feel uneasy about the situation of children trapped in the homes of such parents; exposed constantly and unremittingly to their distorted worldview, without the escape valve of being able to get away from their mothers and fathers for six hours or so each day.'

Simon said,"Most probably, most of those about whom I wrote do genuinely have the disorders which they claim for themselves and their children. That is to say that my contention, that many of the better known home educators and former home educators in this country have mental illnesses, learning difficulties and so on is true."

So why draw attention to self diagnosis and suggest that parents just want to label stupid, lazy or unpopular children with a condition to make themselves feel better in your blog article above if you believe that they really do have these conditions? You can't have it both ways.

'if we can find the source of the anger and malice which some of these people regularly display, then it might give us a little insight into why some other people feel uneasy about the situation of children trapped in the homes of such parents; exposed constantly and unremittingly to their distorted worldview, without the escape valve of being able to get away from their mothers and fathers for six hours or so each day.'

This was from the post which I made on January 1st, in which I set out to explore the source of the furious anger displayed by many home educators in the public eye. That this has caused local authorities and others to be uneasy about the sort of people who both show this rage regularly and also keep their children at home with them all the time is undeniable. I went on to explore the fact that many of these people both subscribed to very strange theories of how the world worked and also claimed to have mental illnesses and/or learning difficulties.

I am not sure here whether you are saying that this is not true or that I was wrong to draw attention to it?

'That this has caused local authorities and others to be uneasy about the sort of people who both show this rage regularly and also keep their children at home with them all the time is undeniable.'

That's ridiculous. All special interest groups have some zealous members who regularly overstep the mark when online. 'Local Authorities and others' haven't got time to be 'uneasy' about so many people in society.

'He spends a great deal of time being dishonest without actually telling bare-faced lies.'

By which I take it that you do not think it true that the great majority of the well known home educators and former home educators whom one sees in newspapers, magazines, television and radio interviews, on the comments sections of online articles, in blogs and lists, have not climed to have mental illnesses and learning difficulties? Either that or you do think this is so, but are objecting to my drawing attention to the fact.

No; you have the wrong end of the stick. Take the Lizard claim, for example; you referred to:

"a high profile home educator and also somebody with beliefs that mark her out as being on the borderline of sanity"

When asked: "Are you qualified to make that judgement?'

You responded:"I suppose that depends whether you think that a belief that the queen is a lizard is a perfectly sound position to hold or if, like me, you believe it to be verging on lunacy.

Did the person you spoke to actually state explicitly that she believed that members of the royal family are Lizards? You have avoided answering that, so far. Now is your chance to confirm their stated belief.

'Did the person you spoke to actually state explicitly that she believed that members of the royal family are Lizards? You have avoided answering that, so far. Now is your chance to confirm their stated belief.'

This is a fair question. If you are asking whether the person concerned specifically mentioned that the queen was really a lizard; then the answer if no. What she actually said, with reference to David Icke and his website was, "I'm a believer." Without going too deeply into this raving lunacy, the shape-shifting lizards are integral to the whole thing. They are not a side-show that you can take or leave.

If you are a believer in David Icke and his views, then the royal lizards are a must! I don't want to spend too much time discussing this cult, about which I have written in magazines, but anybody who follows it or believes at all in David Icke, will accept that the royal family are really ancient reptiles, as in indeed ar many other world leaders. The whole core of David Icke's worldview is that the planet has been taken over by reptiles from outer space who trick themselves out like humans. They are taking over the world! Trust me on this, anybody who says that she is a believer, follower or disciple of David Icke thinks that reptoids are in charge, including our royal family.

Incidentally, I hope you don't mind, but I have removed your comment from today's post, because it is all but identical to this one. Perhaps it would be best to keep all our royal lizard type discussions in one place.

Taking a quick look at Icke's web site, it seems to be a mix of bunkum and rumours (not all of which are necessarily false) that have been floating around for decades. So do lots of others.

Your inference and conclusions about sanity are highly selective in an attempt to smear home educators; a significant proportion of the population believes one form of bizarre myth or another, and a great many of these people are in leadership positions. A great many people in positions of power and authority believe some part of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic malarkey or its offshoots; are you calling their sanity into question?

"A great many people in positions of power and authority believe some part of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic malarkey or its offshoots; are you calling their sanity into question?"

Of course he isn't. They hold highly respectable bizarre beliefs, carefully honed by theologians and enforced over thousands of years by employing various forms of abuse, torture, and murder to the point where they've been accepted as "normal" for many generations.

Icke's Lizard beliefs might achieve respectability in a thousand years or so, if the right strategy and tactics are employed.

Forgive my asking, but are any of those commenting here actually lizard people from outer space? I can see that laughing at the idea of the royal family being reptiles has touched a few nerves. Is a substantial proportion of the home educating community composed of shape-shifting reptiles who eat human flesh? I can see that I shall have to look a little deeper into this business.